


Unfocused

by StarlightXNightmare



Series: Septic Egos [11]
Category: Video Blogging RPF, jacksepticeye
Genre: Accidents, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Breathing Exercises, Crying, Hypnosis, Impatience, Insomnia, Magic, Marvin's stubborn and doesn't really take no for an answer, Mentions of night terrors, Overworking, Panic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Schneep's against Marvin's idea, Sleep Deprivation, Surprises, Swearing, hopelessness, unhealthy coping habits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 17:25:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15539289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightXNightmare/pseuds/StarlightXNightmare
Summary: His vision was blurry and unfocused even with his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. The words on the page didn't make any sense anymore—they hadn't made any sense in a while. They were being read at a snail's pace and even reading slowly the words couldn't compute in his brain. Somewhere along his constant work words became letters jumbled together. Irritated, dry eyes read the same line of text over and over, his mind trying to latch onto the letters in front of him and retain at least a few words.





	Unfocused

**Author's Note:**

> This took me like two or three weeks. This short story kicked my butt.

His vision was blurry and unfocused even with his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. The words on the page didn't make any sense anymore—they hadn't made any sense in a while. They were being read at a snail's pace and even reading slowly the words couldn't compute in his brain. Somewhere along his constant work words became letters jumbled together. Irritated, dry eyes read the same line of text over and over, his mind trying to latch onto the letters in front of him and retain at least a few words.

Even though it had been a month since he had been rescued, he was still months upon months behind on work, papers and reports stacked in several piles with seemingly no end. The excuse of having months of work to catch up on was enough to convince the others that he needed to be alone for long periods of time to begin cutting the piles down. It was enough of an excuse to keep himself holed up in his office for long hours, only leaving for meals (sometimes he even ate in his office). Just like before. _Except that nothing was the same as before._

His hands came up and pushed his glasses up as he rubbed his eyes beneath them. How long he had been up working he didn't know—all he knew was that he had to keep working. If he didn't keep working then he'd end up falling asleep. If he ended up falling asleep then he'd be back _there_ again with the demon, trapped inside his own mind's delusions until he was thrust out of his mind and back into reality in a screaming, sobbing mess. That only caused worry and concern with the others.

Coffee no longer helped keep him awake. If anything the warmth lulled him further into a state of drowsiness. So he began drinking it cold. Not that it helped much. His blood was basically coffee at this point. He vaguely wondered if he could fill a syringe with coffee and inject it into his veins to mix the caffeine into his bloodstream. Would that help?

It wasn't helping that if it was quiet enough then he could hear the faint static in his ears, the sound eternally burned in his brain. He kept forgetting to turn background noises on when he was alone. The permanent sound made him want to claw at his skin, slap his hands over his ears but he knew from experience that it wouldn't help. He was scared for when the soft, nearly inaudible static grew in volume, signalling his approach. It hadn't happened yet but that didn't mean anything. 

His eyelids felt as if there were weights attached to them, throbbing pain around his eyes and sockets that only was alleviated when he blinked sluggishly, eyes closing for too long every blink. The feeling of blackness creeping up on his mind scared him. The half full mug on his desk beckoned him over. Arm heavy as lead, he reached for it unconsciously. Hopefully the cold liquid would perk him up enough or at least make him need to use the bathroom. If he drank it all, he'd need to go into the kitchen to refill it. Then he could go back to work and continue on—

_Crash!_

The flinch and wide eyed reaction was several seconds too late. Schneep stared blankly at the destroyed mug and cold coffee on the ground, ceramic littering the floor and coffee splashed all over the tiled floor, wall, and side of his desk. Glassy eyes were fixated vacantly at the mess, his mind being unable to comprehend what had just happened. A simple overreach, his arm moved out too fast and his hand didn't open to grab the mug, instead shoving it off his desk.

As soon as what he'd done clicked in his mind, the realization that he had to cleanup the mess dawned on him. If he didn't, the mess would bother him—eat away at the edges of his mind until he gave in and cleaned it anyway. Someone could step on the ceramic and hurt themselves and the coffee on the ground was going to be slipped in or tracked everywhere. Thinking about cleaning the mess made him sigh heavily—he didn't want to move.

For once something overpowered the compulsive urge to clean the mess.

_Why even bother?_ Why bother trying to catch up on nine months of work while more piled up as he frantically struggled to claw his way back? He wasn't going to ever catch up. Why bother cleaning up the mess? It wasn't like it was important. Was anything important at this point? The static in the back of his mind seemed to agree with him and got a little louder (it was probably his imagination; nothing to worry about).

When he felt his eyes sting he brought his hands up and pressed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. He wanted nothing more to lay down and sleep but he was scared. Of nightmares, of waking up in the room he'd been trapped in, of finding the demon standing above him. He couldn't cry because then he got tired after he shed all his tears.

A shaky inhale... hold... slow exhale. Schneep repeated this until he was no longer on the verge of crying. Crying would only make things worse. He cried a lot—too much. 

A quick glance down to the mess on the ground determined his next course of action. He couldn't just leave it, no matter how much he wanted to. The static seemed to lessen a bit.

His hands gripped the armrests and squeezed them briefly before he pushed himself onto his feet. A wave of vertigo washed over him as darkness was all he could see for a moment. Blinking several times and rubbing at his eyes returned his vision, albeit slowly. Practically falling to his knees, Schneep reached out and began collecting the shards one by one in the palm of one hand. Once all the shards were collected, he dumped them in the trash bin by his desk and stared unseeingly at the dark puddle of coffee. He didn't know what to do with it—he didn't have anything on him to clean the mess up with. After a moment of silent thinking, he shucked off his lab coat.

That's how Marvin found him—on his hands and knees mopping up spilled cold coffee with his lab coat.

"Schneep? What the hell are you doing?"

The doctor nearly screamed, jolting hard and head snapping up to see Marvin standing at the bottom step. He hadn't even heard him come down—when did he come down? Marvin looked tired, shoulders slumped, mask slightly askew, and hair falling past his shoulders in tangles.

The sound of a sharp clap broke him out of his musings. "Did you even hear me?" The magician asked, irritation bleeding into his voice.

It took him a moment to remember how to speak. "Ah—sorry, yes." Marvin's expectant staring confused him. "What?"

"You didn't answer my question."

A confused noise. "Oh... what was it?" He shrank a bit under Marvin's scrutiny. Right: questions are bad.

"What. Are. You. Doing?" The man in the cat mask bit out deliberately slowly. Insultingly slowly even. But Schneep couldn't really comprehend that at the moment.

He was confused. "Cleaning?"

"With your lab coat?"

"... Yes? I couldn't think of anything else."

Marvin sighed heavily. "What about the box of tissues on your desk? There are literally paper towel rolls in your desk drawers."

Schneep blinked, brain working overtime to try and process the information. "There... there is? I did not see it."

Marvin sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's your damn desk. You work here every day for hours upon hours. You should _know_ where things are."

This was true. Before everything that happened he'd have known that, even if he was sleep deprived past the point of function (it'd take him a while to find it but he wouldn't forget its existence entirely). It had taken him a while to remember where everything important was and even now it still slipped his mind. He feels like an imposter—he doesn't feel like the same man who sat here almost an entire year ago.

He tried to choke out an apology—clearly he was in the wrong for forgetting something so obvious—but all that came out was a shuddery sob. Hands left the coat on the ground and buried his palms into his eyes to wipe at the tears threatening to fall.

Marvin's annoyance fell away as he drew in a sharp breath. "Aw... Schneep..." He took a small step forward before continuing slowly forward.

This time it was too much for Schneep to stop. Tears blurred his vision and dripped down his scarred cheeks regardless of how hard he tried to prevent it. Everything just felt heavier than normal, pressing down painfully on his shoulders and mind. Drawing in a shaky breath, he wiped at his eyes with the edges of his long sleeved shirt.

Marvin knelt a foot or two away from Schneep, hand hovering, unsure of how to proceed. "Hey... don't..." He cut himself off from what he was going to say and instead stared at Schneep's face for a moment. "When was the last time you slept?"

A helpless shrug. "Don't... don't know," Schneep managed to choke out.

Marvin's annoyance rekindled and it showed in his voice. "Why aren't you taking care of yourself?"

It was probably a good thing that Marvin was asking questions that required more than one word answers. They forced him to collect himself enough to answer lest he respond with something in German, a mix between the two languages, or something too broken up to understand.

Truth be told, normally Schneep would never answer that question directly if he was calm enough and awake enough. It'd usually get brushed off with a dismissive answer or a topic change. This time however: "Can't sleep."

Marvin sighed, "You need to sleep eventually."

He took a deep breath in, realizing the tears had stopped and left him feeling even more tired than ever. Head shaking slowly, Schneep mumbled, "Do not need to. Perfectly able to keep working."

"That's fucking bullshit!" Marvin snapped angrily, startling Schneep into flinching. He gestured to Schneep exasperatedly. "You're cleaning the floor with your lab coat and literally crying over forgetting that tissues and paper towels exist! C'mon, you're going to get some sleep. _Now,_ " Marvin insisted, grabbing Schneep's frail wrist. The sudden movement was enough to make him flinch and gasp in surprise, tearing his wrist from the other's gloved grip before averting his eyes guiltily. Marvin immediately let go, mouth opening to say somethi—

"Is... is fine. Wasn't expecting it is all," the doctor mumbled. He didn't see the uncertain look the magician shot him but felt Marvin's hand loosely grab one of his. The brief, gentle squeeze was unexpected from such a brash person happened to be enough to startle Schneep yet again.

"C'mon... **.**  Get up." His voice was much quieter than normal, its usual edge gone and leaving a softer tone behind, drawing the doctor's eyes back to him.

"The mess—what about it?" Schneep protested weakly, glancing back down at his stained white coat.

"You can clean it once you've gotten some sleep." Marvin grabbed Schneep's other hand in his free hand and tugged lightly on both once he stood. The other man obeyed, standing on shaking legs.

"Is not going to work," he yawned. "Already tried and it didn't work."

Marvin lightly pulled him to the stairs, leading him slowly up the stairs. "Why didn't it work?"

"Too scared." Schneep was too tired to even consider lying at this point.

Marvin hummed lightly. "We're going to try something new."

The words struck a chord in Schneep, gray blue eyes widening in fear. He recoiled, feebly attempting to wrench his hands from Marvin's. In his clouded mind, he forgot they were ascending the steps and nearly to the top. Luckily Marvin had tightened his grip at the last possible moment and pulled him back forward.

"Jesus you're light!" Marvin gasped in shock.

"Don't want to try something new!" The doctor blurted, trying to wriggle his hands out from Marvin's grip. The steely grip was enough to make his bubbling panic boil up violently, threatening to overflow.

"Calm down, Hen—it's nothing bad. I'm just going to try and use my magic to calm you down enough to sleep," the magician assured.

By the time Schneep processed this and was shaking his head, he was being gently pushed down to sit on the couch. He practically melted into the plush seat, the feeling of slouching into such a comfortable surface relaxing his exhausted, tense muscles against his will. Marvin took a seat next to him, taking a moment to readjust his crooked mask.

"This is going to work a lot smoother if we remain in physical contact. Keep your breathing steady and try your best to stay calm," Marvin instructed softly, gloved hands giving trembling ones a soft squeeze.

"Marvin, I really do not want to do this," Schneep pleaded though he didn't pull away from the magician's grip. He wasn't sure if he was scared to or oddly hopeful that something might actually get him to sleep.

The main in the cat mask nodded. "I know you don't but you need to sleep now. Just listen to me and you'll feel much better about the whole thing." He curled his fingers and entwined them with Schneep's so their palms were pressed together.

Schneep realized belatedly that he wasn't going to get out of this and decided it'd be best if he stopped resisting altogether. Just go along with what Marvin wanted and he'd be happy. Swallowing nervously, he nodded, eyes squeezed shut.

"Marvelous. Now pay attention to my voice and do as I say," he crooned softly.

Maybe this was a bad idea—

"Deep breath in..." the magician began, drawing in an exaggerated breath of air. Schneep did his best to mimic it to the best of his ability without rushing it.

"Hold it for five seconds." Neither breathed.

"Now let it out slowly." Schneep breathed in sync with Marvin.

He didn't know how long they went through the breathing exercises, drawing in deep breaths and holding them in for however long before releasing them. It was weird to feel so relaxed and sleepy.

At some point his hands were growing warm and a quick glance down at their joined hands revealed bright green mist curled around both of their hands and lower arms. Somewhere in the back of his mind something was screaming that the demon had tricked him again but he felt oddly detached from reality—like he had absolutely zero cares in the world and that his mind was disconnected from his body. Besides, the longer he stared at the magic, he managed to spot differences in their power. The demon's glowing green eye appeared a crueler shade of neon green while Marvin's magic was a much softer shade and warmer to the touch. The demon's power was cold unlike Marvin's.

"There you go, Schneep. Just keep breathing... and let you eyes slide shut." Everything was beginning to sound muffled—as if everything were submerged underwater. The staticky sound in his ears and the pounding of his heart seemed to dim but Marvin's voice remained perfectly clear, cutting through the weird silence.

It was easy to just listen and do what he's told.

**Author's Note:**

> Marvin only wants to help but he may be doing more damage than good. I swear to god this was supposed to have a happy ending but Schneep does get to sleep so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
